Frida Kahlo: Pain and Passion
Psychological Analysis of Frida Kahlo
Frida’s emotional and physical state was impacted by many tragic and difficult events in her life. These tragic events lead to her obsessive tendencies and neurotic behaviors. She struggled most of her life with physical and emotional pain. Her artwork was her therapeutic outlet and illustrates her pain and tragic life.
The first traumatic event in Frida’s life occurred as an infant when her mother was not able to bond with her through nursing. Her mother was not physically able to nurse her since she had her other daughter 11 months later. Frida was then nursed by a wet nurse. Frida also lost her wet nurse as well after as she was found drinking alcohol and was fired. As
…show more content…
She suffers from this serious illness. But was left with some physical impairments. Her father nursed her back to health and this strengthens her strong bond with her father. Because she received the attention that made her feel loved it is believed that she exaggerated her symptoms for attention. This may have lead to Frida association of medical illness and others caring for her. She received great attention when she suffered illness. This was a pattern that repeated itself and may have lead to her Munchausen’s syndrome”, a psychosomatic disorder in which patients develop symptoms and seek unnecessary surgery as an attention-getting …show more content…
Frida was so seriously injured in the accident that she thought she was going to die. Her boyfriend Alejandro pulled her from the wreckage and he pleaded with the doctors to take her. She experienced the trauma of surviving such a serious bus accident and then enduring the physical pain of her ravaged body. Her injuries were great. Her spinal column was broken, her pelvis, collarbone, ribs, and leg were all broken. She reported that the steel handrail entered her hip and came out her vagina. She may have overdramatized the wound the same way that she exaggerated her sufferings from polio but it is likely that she associated pain with sex as a result of the memory of this injury.
As a result of the bus accident, Frida was bedridden for one month and placed in a cast. The mental agony of her body not working and the extreme pain and isolation had a traumatic effect on Frida at the age of 19. She also lost her boyfriend during her recovery. Friends describe Frida as changed after this injury. Some said that she became a mature woman and others stated that it was a rebirth for Frida. This accident had a profound effect on her physical and emotional state. During this time Frida began to paint and share her pain and struggles through her
Hook How many of you have seen a person publicly shamed or embarrassed? We have all seen these instances where people have been called out for everyone to see. Hester Prynne In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, is publically shamed in front of the whole town and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest. All because of her sin, adultery.
Although his love for art was immense, Rivera’s relationship with the passionate Frida Kahlo would rival against it. After they met through a mutual friend (“Chronology” 6), Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist (Krull 85), were married in Coyoacán on August 21, 1929 (“Chronology” 6). Rivera was 42 years old, and Frida was 22 years old (“Chronology”6). They were nicknamed the Elephant and the Dove because Rivera was over six feet tall and weighed 300 pounds as opposed to Frida, who was five feet three inches and weighed 98 pounds (Krull 85). This marriage was Rivera’s third and Frida’s first (Krull 85).
Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City on July 7, 1907. Though she wanted many to believe that she was born in 1910, the year of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Her father was a photographer of Hungarian Jewish decent, and her mother was Spanish and Native American. From an early age Frida's life would be marked by years of physical suffering. At the age of six she was stricken with polio, this left her right leg to appear much thinner than the other, as well as leaving her with a limp. Though she suffered dearly as a child, she was fearless and brave. She was also extremely intelligent.
The painting is of two versions of Frida Kahlo, closely gripping hands and sharing one heart between them. They are dressed in contrary clothing, with the Frida on the left dressed in modern European garb, while the other to the right is in traditional Mexican clothing. When viewing the painting, we are immediately attracted to the left Frida, who has nearly all of the light in the painting shining down on her. Her European clothing, popular in Mexico at the time, feels very constricting for both the subject and the viewer,specifically the collar grasping her neck so very tightly. Her upright and fragile stance and her almost limp grasp of the second Frida’s is understandable as we see the gaping hole where her heart should be. The pulsating anatomy of her wound bleeds into the room, while her face is completely indifferent. A single vein connects the hole in left Frida to the heart of right Frida. In left Frida’s unclenched hand, a delicate pair of scissors, indicating that she had wretched the heart out of her own bosom. It is this connection that guides us to the Frida to the right, but not before we notice the background behind them. A gray and cloudy backdrop that seems to embody Kahlo’s emotional state at the time, it is hard to distinguish the right Frida from its murky depths. A shadow presiding all around her, the right Frida is dressed in a traditional Mexican dress, with a posture and facial expression completely identical to the other Frida’s. The most eye-catching feature of hers, however, is the pulsating heart that the left Frida is lacking beating out of her chest. This gruesome and oblivious picture is made only more extraordinary when we make out the object right Frida is
Frida’s rise to success was defined by the challenges she endured over time. She had this sense of durability, strength and resilience. She can be rude and bold and also smoke and drink like the men. . At first Frida”s painted what she felt, but it wasn’t to show anyone or sell any paintings. . Every tragedy that affected her she would paint it and express it. In my opinion her rise began once she witness her husband having and affair with her sister. it hurt her so much inside the only way to let it go and let it out was she had to paint it. After that, she went on her own and began painting her pain. Through out her life she endured many hardships that hurt her internally. This shifted her point of view
Frida was a very skilled painter who did mainly self-portraits where she expressed her feelings and portrayed herself in unconventional ways. Frida would take some of the events of her life and paint them. For example, Frida painted the auto accident she was in that left her with traumatizing pain, the miscarriages she suffered as a result of the accident, the heartbreak she
One day her and her boyfriend at the time, Alejandro, were riding on a bus, and then all of a sudden the bus crashed into a streetcar. Kahlo had a number of serious injuries, as a result of the crash. Because of this she was hospitalized for numerous weeks. While she recovered from the crash more so at home, she started painting her first self-portrait whom she gave to her boyfriend, Alejandro. Frida Kahlo started becoming more interested in politics; in result she joined the Young Communist League, and the Mexican Communist Party. At the age of 21 she and Rivera met each other again, and he loved her artwork. After a year of dating they got married. Frida Kahlo started adding some more intense and real looking pieces into her artwork, mostly because of a recent miscarriage. Kahlo and her husband moved to New York, because Rivera painted a mural in the Rockefeller Center, then when he finished they quickly returned to their new home in San Angel, Mexico. Kahlo and Rivera’s marriage didn’t work out that well he cheated on her with her younger sister Christina. Because of her devastation, she cut off most of her long thick beautiful black
As a young child Frida Kahlo was a very intelligent girl with hopes of becoming a doctor. She developed polio as a young child and at the age of eighteen was seriously injured in a traffic accident that caused her to become weak throughout the rest of her life. In 1920 for ten years she traveled
Henry II The reader might ask who really was Henry II? So read this and find out a few things about Henry II. Henry the second had several ups and several downs in his life. Anything from him becoming king to him losing control and trust from his own kids.
The nails throughout her body are describing where she felt the agonizing pain. Frida had to wear a surgical brace, so her broken bones would heal. During her recovering is when her interest in painting began. She used this time to come up with many famous artworks.
Frida attended a National Preparatory School in 1922 hoping to become a doctor. At the same school, she saw Diego Rivera, painting “The Creation” (“Biography.com”). Frida was inspired and approached Diego with her compliments. He told her to go home and return with a painting in one week for him to judge. When she did as he asked, he was very impressed with her artistic ability and they became close (“Frida Kahlo: Biography”). Their relationship progressed and then Frida got into her terrible bus accident.
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s fame only grew larger after her death, bringing her art as well as her personal life into museums, books, and also movies. Through her life Kahlo dealt with various illness, tumultuous relationships, and was even involved in some political movements. Consequently, her art was influenced by all the experiences as seen and felt through her own eyes and flesh.
Frida Kahlo's influence still lingers around the world. Even with Frida dead for almost two decades, she is still celebrated and thought of as an idol. Frida Kahlo was an artist in many different ways. Besides Frida's incredible talent to paint surrealist thoughts and emotions on canvas, she also was and artist in her mind and body. Frida's attire of traditional Mexican clothing, which consisted of long, colorful dresses and exotic jewelry, and her thick connection eyebrows, became her trademark. To the public, Frida Kahlo appeared to be full of spirit and joy. She walked through life happily, with a smile glued to her face. However, her feelings of anguish, anger, unhappiness of her painful miscarriages, and
Frida's artwork has always interested me in many ways. Her paintings are so much more than self-portraits and surrealism. She illustrates her life and the struggles she goes through, even if most would like to ignore the darker aspects of life. The theme of suffering permeates Frida’s self-portraits and often explicitly comprises their subject matter. She visually depicts physical and psychological struggles through the distortions of her body, which is fragmented, doubled, turned inside-out, and merged with non-human elements. She shows me that I can be strong through life even when I'm hurting physically and emotionally. Frida challenged herself and her
Child abuse is defined in many different ways, and continues to be a problem in the United States regardless of laws put in place to defend children from their abusers. People mostly think that child abuse is only physical abuse which is not true. The different types of abuse according to Childhelp.org physical abuse “is hitting, kicking, shaking a child” these are the example of physical abuse. This is about the breakdown of the different child abuse and the outcomes it has on the child life. A child life can be impact many ways for an example depression, suicidal thoughts, how it can affect them in the future life, low self-esteem, really horrible flashbacks, and not being able to trust anyone in the future Though some may argue that hitting a child is a form of discipline, Child abuse has become a major issue in today’s society and needs to be addressed.